Appointments: Presidency Explains Mix-up as PDP Taunts APC

The presidency has explained the mix-up in listing the late Senator Francis Okpozu and two other dead men among chairmen and members of boards of government agencies and parastatals it announced on Friday.
The President’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu admitted the errors and said “no human undertaking can be free of mistakes”.
Controversy had trailed the appointments made by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), late Friday announced the appointment of 209 board chairpersons and 1,258 board members.
A scrutiny of the names, however, shows that at least three of them have died after Buhari was sworn in as president on May 29, 2015.
About four other names are duplicated in more than one agency while some opposition politicians also got appointed.
However, Shehu said the errors identified with the list were not enough to describe the exercise as scandalous, insisting that “there is no scandal”.
The President’s spokesman explained that the names of dead appointees in the list came about because the list had been compiled by the former SGF, Babachir David Lawal.
Shehu said: “The list has a history” which explained the controversy around it.
“In 2015, Mr. President requested all state chapters of the party to submit names of 50 party members for board appointments,” Shehu said.
He said the names where compiled by the national secretariat of the APC and forwarded to the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.
“However, complaint arose from some governors who felt they were not carried along in the process. To answer this, the president constituted a committee under the vice president to review and reflect the interest of the governors”.
Shehu said action was delayed on the report of the committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as President Muhammadu Buhari took ill.
“The President’s trips for medical attention slowed down completion of the process.
“The current SGF was only directed to complete that process by releasing the list which he apparently did without altering it,” Mallam Shehu explained.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, on Saturday described as an unpardonable national embarrassment, the appointment of deceased persons as members of various federal boards by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement said this following the controversy trailing the President’s appointments considered as the largest since he assumed power.
The statement read in part: “The development has further confirmed PDP’s position that the APC administration is completely confused, disorganised and grossly incompetent. Nigerians can now see why the nation’s economy has been in shambles in the last two years. When we say that this government is completely inept, some Nigerians did not know to which level, but now they do.
“This inability to tidy up a simple issue of list of 209 appointees has completely exposed the extent the APC government is bereft of simple organisational skills to manage a country like Nigeria, which is in dire need of development.
“How on earth can a government that cannot compile a common list handle intricate issues of national planning and budgeting; issues of health, education, aviation, agriculture, infrastructure and management of the huge civil service?
“How can they possibly initiate and successfully implement national and international instruments for national development in today’s competetive world? This also explains why nothing has been working under the APC government. Furthermore, the mix up in the list also exposes the corruption in the APC government.
“The fact is that the government of our dear country has been in wrong hands in the last two years and the situation will continue to worsen unless the nation is rescued from them in 2019.”